http://www.jewishworldreview.com --
JANE SWIFT of Massachusetts has just given birth to twin girls.
Wonderful, but not remarkable in itself, really - except that she
happens to be the governor of the state. Swift is America's first
state chief executive to give birth in office, but it's not the first time
this "governor mom" has made fertility news. Swift has a daughter,
now 2, delivered just weeks before she was elected lieutenant
governor. (Swift was recently bumped up to acting governor when
Governor Paul Cellucci left to become U.S. ambassador to Canada.)

Swift has been regularly hailed in the national press for being a
trendsetter for women. But this kind of "governor-mom" is one
trend we don't need.

Sure, men have held executive office with little ones running
around. Just look at President Kennedy. But so what? Women are
not men, mothers are not fathers, and sometimes life isn't fair.
Meaning that we moms get the better end of the deal when we
care for our little ones, what we want most to do anyway, and
don't kid ourselves that we can hustle 80 hours a week for the
brass ring, lovingly look after our babies who want a mom's special
brand of nurturing and not cheat someone terribly in the process.

I wonder, when one of Swift's children is sick and wanting her
mother, will Swift be able to just blithely leave the child behind with
dad, who reportedly stays with the kids, or perhaps with sitters,
while she tends day and night to the business of the state? Or will
that ill child occupy her heart and mind as little ones do in a very
special and unique way with us moms? Answer: Swift has already
gotten into trouble once for using a state helicopter to get home
fast to a sick baby.

I can understand Swift's professional ambition. What I can't
understand is how she's allowed it to completely trump her
so-young children. After all, she's deliberately separated from them
by her professional priorities, commitments and the demands of her
executive responsibilities, not to mention geography. The twins, like
Swift's older daughter, will be raised in Williamstown, Mass. - hours
away from mom's workplace at the state house in Boston. Of
course, pointing out the obvious, that young children want most to
be nurtured by their moms and that moms almost always want to
be the primary nurturers to their little ones, is politically incorrect to
say the least. Wondering what's gone askew when seemingly
normal, loving mothers turn their backs on that equation is a
positively explosive proposition - but a profoundly relevant one, as
any honest woman knows.

Senator John McCain often talks about his experience as a POW
during the Vietnam War. He recounts how his father, an admiral
and commander of the Pacific forces at the time, ordered massive
bombings even while knowing they might kill his son. No matter
what one thinks of the merits of the case one recognizes that
Admiral McCain was doing the right thing by putting duty first in that
extraordinary instance, no matter how difficult that duty was.

But what if Mrs. McCain had been the admiral - could she, would
she, have ordered the bombings and so deliberately put her son's
life at stake? I certainly hope not. In fact, I wouldn't want to know a
mother who could do such a thing. More horrifying still is the idea of
a nation filled with such hardened moms.

But a national, heralded example like Swift makes me think that's
exactly what we are in danger of becoming. We are losing the
understanding that men and women, moms and dads, are very
different and our children need both - desperately and differently.
That's good for the kids and good for the larger community.

Any doubts about the distinction? Christian scholar C.S. Lewis once
asked, if your dog bit the neighbor's child, who would you rather
talk to about it - the kid's mom or the dad? The answer is obvious,
because we all know that in most cases the mom would (rightly) rip
your head off. No Governor Swift is not, for now, deciding the
course of a war. But she is on a dangerous path of putting her ego
before what must be her natural instincts as a mother - to be with
her young children and babies as much as she can. She's kidding
herself if she thinks she can be good at both jobs, and she's
cheating everyone involved. She's not proving something in a
"man's world" - she's cheapening the role of women and
moms.

JWR contributor Betsy Hart, a frequent commentator on CNN and the Fox News Channel, can be reached by clicking here.